Posted by Phil Lee (149.32.89.229) on October 19, 2000 at 13:49:
After analyzing nearly 32 million electronic death certificates over 15 years, researchers at the University of California-San Diego reached the conclusion that addicts spending their first-of-the-month government checks on drugs and alcohol probably account for most of the variation in death rates they had observed. They found that the number of deaths in the United States rises at the start of every month and drops at the end. The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine (see "An increase in the number of deaths in the United States in the first week of the month -- an association with substance abuse and other causes of death," Phillips DP, Christenfeld N, Ryan NM, The New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 341, 1999).
When the researchers took into account killings, suicides, and accidents which were alcohol or drug related, the gap widened to 6 or 7 per cent. When both drugs and alcohol were entered on the death certificate as a cause, the difference doubled to about 14 per cent. Furthermore, there were 106.5 murders at the start of the month for every 100 at the end. Broken down by race, there were nearly 29 more homicides, suicides, and accidents involving substance abuse among minorities at the beginning as opposed to the end of the month, compared with 10 extra such deaths among white people.
In the United States, welfare, social security and veterans' benefit checks are sent out at the start of the month. Professor Lisa Najavits, of the psychology department at Harvard Medical School, said that the study "really highlights the extraordinary toll of substance abuse."
Imagine that -- guns do not cause violence, government checks do.
Source New England Journal of Medicine [Registration Required] and see Addicts push-up death rate.